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CARAVANSERAIS

/ kærəˈvænsəˌraɪ /
Research


Project 1
Sonic Ecology
  1. Curatorial Statement
  2. Listening to Ecosystems from Interdisciplinary Perspectives
  3. Music and Activism
  4. The Vigil of Debris
  5. The Recycling Concerto
  6. The Unexpected Guest


Project 2
Music & Moving Image
  1. Curatorial Statement
  2. Water, The First Body
  3. Light in Infinite Darkness
  4. Kyager
  5. The Moments


Project 3
Naamyam Creative Research 
南音創意研究
  1. 策展人的話
  2. 南音的互動
  3. 戲台南音賞析
  4. 南音創意研究〈客途秋恨〉MV創意對談: 許敖山x杜泳
  5. 南音飄揚未定
  6. 香港南音之永劫回歸？
  7. 南音︰起點抑或歸處？──「南音新創作展演」的兩種實驗
  8. 傳統音樂的突破？南音未來之路——「南音研究計劃」


Project 4
Contain
  1. Genesis
  2. This is water
  3. Modul-ation
  4. Often easy, sometimes impossible
  5. Sensations of getting lost





The content of CARAVANSERAIS does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region provides funding support to CARAVANSERAIS only, but does not otherwise take part in it.  Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the materials/activities (or by members of the GRANTEE’s team) are those of the organisers of CARAVANSERAIS only and do not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Mark

The Recycling Concerto 
Video Presentation & Interview


Gregor A. Mayrhofer
composer and conductor

中文版本︎




Introduction 

The topic of environmental destruction dominates this moment in time. In particular we must urgently decide what to do about our trash, waste and poisonous materials.


The composer and conductor Gregor A. Mayrhofer saw this as an opportunity to address the issues in a musical way and composed a concerto for recycled percussion and orchestra dedicated to the young percussionist Vivi Vassileva: The Recycling Concerto.


Various new percussion instruments were developed for the piece, all made from recycled materials. Nothing new is purchased - all percussion sounds are created only from discarded materials that would otherwise go to waste. The “sound material” for the solo instruments consists of foils, plastics, recycled glass, scrap metal - all these materials that would only burden our planet receive a new life and meaning in the Recycling Concerto.


Used plastic containers become drums, discarded glasses and bottle caps become shakers, used coffee capsules turn into rustling chimes. However, these materials that we would normally consider trash can create more than just rhythm, they can even be transformed into melodic instruments. Used plastic bottles can be tuned by air pressure through a valve in the lid, becoming a kind of recycled marimba.


The Recycling Concerto aims to involve host cities and areas in the musical creative process, so that specific regional waste issues are integrated into each performance. Local collections can be arranged to gather rubbish for individually adapted instruments and as a result, locally recycled materials can be used for the concert.


Several excerpts of the concerto can also be performed as solo percussion pieces which can be used to establish the topic of recycled waste in an educational context, for example in schools or education outreach events. Together with the soloists of the Recycling Concerto, young people can learn how to build their own instruments out of rubbish and expand their musical horizons.



In Conversation





Biography

Gregor A. Mayrhofer - Portrait nah - © Urban Ruth 2019

"Composed by the conductor Gregor A. Mayrhofer himself, his music is a wonderfully differentiated woven cosmos in four movements that merge into each other; it could not be any clearer, more differentiated, more economic and more beautiful.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Klaus Kalchschmid, March 2018)

Mayrhofer has conducted the orchestra of the Bavarian State Opera, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Belgrade Philharmonic and Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked with ensembles such as Ascolta, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern Academy, Ensemble Nostri Temporis Kiev, Ensemble Proton Bern, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berliner Philharmoniker, as well as with soloists such as Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Georg Nigl, Daniil Trifonov and Julian Prégardien.

He assisted Sir Simon Rattle at the Festival Aix-en-Provence for a production of Tristan with the London Symphony Orchestra and assisted Kirill Petrenko, Teodor Currentzis, Michael Boder at the Vienna State Opera and Matthias Pintscher at the Berlin State Opera „Unter den Linden“ . In the years 2015-2017 he was assistant conductor of the Ensemble Intercontemporain with whom he made his debut at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2016, standing in at short notice for Pablo Heras-Casado. In 2017, Mayrhofer conducted premiere performances of his commission for the Ensemble Intercontemporain in the Kölner Philharmonie.

As a composer Mayrhofer has received commissions from the Bavarian State Opera, Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Radio), Biennale Munich, Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, State Opera Hanover, the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Tyrolean Festival Erl. The last couple of years have seen premiers of his children’s opera Die Drei Spinnerinnen (The Three Spinners, 2018), his Insect Concerto (2018) with the Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Lageder Oktett (2017) with the Scharoun Ensemble.

He regularly performs as a pianist in jazz concerts with his brother Raphael as part of their duo Imbrothersation, first-prize-winner of Süddeutsche Zeitung‘s Tassilo Kultur Preis in 2009/2010.

Gregor A. Mayrhofer was born in Munich in 1987. He studied composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München (with Jan Müller-Wieland), the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique Paris (with Frédéric Durieux) and at the Robert-Schumann Hochschule Duesseldorf (composition with Manfred Trojahn and conducting with Rüdiger Bohn). In addition to Alan Gilbert, who oversaw his studies for a Master’s degree in conducting at New York’s Juilliard School, Mayrhofer has also studied with James Ross and received lessons from Bernard Haitink, Fabio Luisi and Johannes Schläfli. Furthermore, he assisted Peter Eötvös, Iván Fischer, Daniel Harding, Susanna Mälkki, François-Xavier Roth, Marc Minkowski, Andris Nelsons, Sir George Benjamin, Gustavo Dudamel, Paavo Järvi, Andrés Orozco- Estrada, Matthias Pintscher as well as Sir Simon Rattle.

Among many prizes and scholarships, Gregor A. Mayrhofer has been awarded with the Bavarian Art Sponsorship, the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship and the Charles Schiff Conducting Award.

https://gregor-a-mayrhofer.com/en/